Starfield: Best Background [Top 11]

Backgrounds represent a character’s backstory and determine what skills you will acquire first. However, many choices are available for background, which may be overwhelming. Therefore, this guide will help you decide what makes a background best in your ideal playthrough.

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Key Takeaways

• Character backgrounds play a significant role in shaping your character’s story and abilities.
• These backgrounds offer unique abilities and attributes that cater to various playstyles, providing players with choices to suit their preferences.
• Different backgrounds, like Cyber Runner or Gangster, emphasize different playstyles, such as stealth or direct combat.
• Your chosen background also influences how other NPCs in the game react to your character.

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The background determines what the player was doing before their current campaign. Moreover, the background you pick will also decide what three skills players will get and how other NPCs interact with you. Therefore, this becomes an essential choice, shaping the rest of the campaign in these vast worlds. 

Background	Skill-1	Skill-2	Skill 3
Beast Hunter	Fitness	Ballistics	Gastronomy
Bouncer	Boxing	Security	Fitness
Bounty Hunter	Piloting	Targeting Control Systems	Boost Pack Training
Combat Medic	Pistol Certification	Medicine	Wellness
Cyber Runner	Stealth	Security	Theft
Cyberneticist	Medicine	Security	Lasers
Diplomat	Persuasion	Commerce	Wellness
Gangster	Shotgun Certification	Boxing	Theft
Industrialist	Persuasion	Security	Research Methods
Long Hauler	Weight Lifting	Piloting	Ballistics Weapons Systems
Ronin	Dueling	Stealth	Scavenging

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Author’s Trust

Being totally captivated by the stunning minutiae of the open-world games, Shaheer has been interested in them since the time of Fallout 3. Until now, he closely observes what open-world RPG games offer and loves to explore every little content the game offers. 

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Beast Hunter

Backgrounds are tailored to different playstyles. The Beast Hunter background suits those who seek exploration and creature encounters across the galaxy. 

It includes three associated skills:

1. Fitness: This skill enhances your oxygen capacity, starting your journey with 10% more oxygen. This extra oxygen allows for extended exploration on massive planets without frequent refills.
2. Ballistics: The Ballistics Skill grants ballistic weapons a 10% damage boost. Since most weapons in the game fall under this category, it provides an early-game advantage for dealing more damage.
3. Gastronomy: While less valuable for Beast Hunters, the Gastronomy Skill improves Starfield’s cooking and recipe mechanics. It lets you cook a wider variety of specialty dishes and expand your recipe collection.

These skills enhance the gameplay experience for players who embrace the Beast Hunter background.

As for my suggestion, this background will benefit any regular adventurer as it covers the most basic skill elements in it.

Bouncer

The Bouncer class, in my opinion, will favor those players who keep their survival instincts based on combat. This background may not be astounding, but it can be selective for players with aggressive capabilities.

The class includes a Boxing skill for close-range combat and a valuable Security skill for opening locked chests.

Associated skills for this background:

1. Boxing: Enhances fist combat, increasing fist damage by 25% and reducing oxygen consumption by 25% during power attacks.
2. Security: Valuable for dealing with locks encountered during the campaign, allowing players to unlock more locks and offering additional attempts. It also enables hacking Advanced locks and provides two auto attempts.
3. Fitness: Increases oxygen-carrying capacity by 10%, providing longer stamina in a game where oxygen directly affects stamina. This skill enables players to traverse large areas without slowdowns.

Bounty Hunter

I advise this background to players who focus on space combat. This background offers the best control over your spaceship. I experienced a severe lack of flight capabilities in my missions because I used to ignore the spaceship’s talent generally. However, the skillset this background offers is a must as far as I consider.

This background provides all three skills from the same skill tree, and each of them is essential at different points in the game. Players receive these skills without having to spend skill points.

The three accompanying skills are:

1. Piloting: Vital for a campaign heavily spent in your spaceship. This skill allows you to use your ship’s thrusters, freeing up skill points for other abilities.
2. Targeting Control Systems: Crucial for space combat encounters. This skill improves your targeting system, making it easier to hit enemy ships.
3. Boost Pack Training: Players gain access to booster packs, also known as Jet packs, from the beginning. These packs help you reach higher ground and improve traversal.

Combat Medic

Medics are some of the essential classes in most games. This is also true about the Combat Medic background in Starfield, which is one of the best classes in the game. Although medics are great, medics who can fight are even better. Therefore, this background comes with skills that will allow you to heal and fight back.

Three of the two skills are directly tied to the Medic background and will allow players to have an unbeatable health bar. These skills can increase the players’ overall health and enable them to utilize med packs more. Additionally, if this was not enough, the class even comes with a Pistol Certification skill, making you more of a threat during fights.

Below are the three accompanying skills that come with this background:

• Pistol Certification: The Pistol Certification skill is excellent for any background. However, this Skill goes even better with a Medic. This Skill will allow players to do 10% more damage using their pistols. Therefore, players can hit their enemies back while also healing themselves.
• Medicine: The Medicine skill is another great skill that comes with the Combat Medic. This Skill will allow players to heal themselves 10% more using the health kits and med packs in the game. Moreover, the Skill will also allow you to heal yourself 10% faster.
• Wellness: This is an efficient and very straightforward skill. Therefore, the Wellness skill will add 10% additional health to your character. This is an excellent skill in any game, and I have yet to meet anyone who hates extra health.

The best thing I like about these traits is that they combine fight and endurance. Resulting in the best background the game has to offer.

Cyber Runner

The Cyber Runners are the stealthy hackers that can easily be your favorite background. This background is criminally underrated for the skills that it comes pre-build with.

Therefore, to be good at Stealth and stealing, you may want to consider this class. I admit that in some stages of the game, I realized that stealth is a basic element. Moreover, some missions will tend to get done easily with stealthy gameplay.

This background offers three essential skills for players, making it suitable for those who prefer non-violent approaches during the campaign.

1. Stealth: This skill unlocks the stealth meter and makes it 25% harder for enemies to detect you. It also boosts suppressed weapon damage by 5%.
2. Security: Security skill enables you to lockpick chests and advanced locks. It provides two auto attempts during a single save.
3. Theft: The Theft skill unlocks the pickpocket mechanic, allowing you to pick targets’ pockets. However, getting caught stealing has negative consequences for your character.

Cyberneticist

The Cyberneticist has a very well-rounded background. Moreover, the skill pack will let players create a background that will suit their playstyle. The best thing I can say about this background is that if you do not know which one suits you, blindly go with this one.

1. Medicine: This skill is essential for survival, allowing you to heal 10% more using Med Kits and Emergency Kits. It also increases your healing speed by 10%.
2. Security: Vital for many builds, Security skill enables you to hack Advanced locks and provides two auto attempts for hacking.
3. Lasers: While not as valuable as other skills, Laser skill increases damage by 10% when using laser weapons, offering an alternative playstyle in the game.

Diplomat

The Diplomat is specially designed for players who do not believe in violence. Therefore, this background will allow players to talk their way out of the most tricky situations. I recommend getting this background if you want to earn credits early on.

The Diplomat background offers practical skills throughout the campaign, enhancing your ability to negotiate and earn extra cash.

1. Persuasion: Increases your chance of winning persuasion-based conversations by 10%, making it valuable for diplomatic encounters.
2. Commerce: You can buy items for 5% less credits and sell items for a 10% increased profit, making you a savvy trader.
3. Wellness: Provides 10% extra health, improving your combat resilience as a backup.

Gangster

Lore-wise, this background will make you a perfect fit with the Crimson Fleet. But more importantly, I suggest going with this background to become a sturdy and hardcore fighter.

The Gangster background is tailored for close-range combat, emphasizing shotguns, boxing, and theft.

1. Shotgun Certification: Increases shotgun damage by 10%, allowing you to deal more destruction with these close-range weapons.
2. Boxing: Boosts fist damage by 25% and reduces oxygen consumption by 25% during power attacks, ideal for melee combat.
3. Theft: Unlocks the pickpocket mechanic, enabling you to steal items from unsuspecting targets.

Industrialist

The Industrialist is the background that is incredibly effective within the world of Starfield. On paper, this background will sound very dull and plain. However, the starting skill pack of this class requires careful consideration and makes playthrough easy. 

I did not experience any need for this background in the game’s early stages. However, as the game progressed, I observed that these skills can turn the tide of a tense situation.

Long Hauler

The Long Hauler is another incredibly often underrated background. It comes in with some incredible Skills that sets it apart from other backgrounds in the game. I believe that players can be passive with this kind of skill set.

The Long Hauler background comes with three skills, making it versatile for different aspects of the game.

1. Weight Lifting: Increases your carrying capacity by 10kg, allowing you to carry more items without being encumbered.
2. Piloting: Enables the use of ship thrusters, making exploration in space more efficient.
3. Ballistics Weapons Systems: Enhances ship combat by boosting damage dealt by ballistic weapons by 10% and reducing resource consumption by 20%.

Ronin

The Ronin is the lone survivor background. It is excellent for players who want to scour the galaxies alone. Moreover, the Skillset that comes with this background will enable players to be sneaky while also dealing significant damage. 

The Ronin background offers skills, enhancing both combat and survival aspects.

1. Dueling: Provides a 25% damage increase with melee weapons and reduces damage received by 10% when using melee weapons.
2. Stealth: Grants a stealth meter and increases evasion by 25%, while suppressed weapons deal 5% more damage.
3. Scavenging: Enhances your capabilities, allowing you to discover more credits when searching containers.

Here is the best thing I offer as a personal preference: Select the Introvert trait with this background. You will be dominant even in the higher-level fight scenario.

My Thoughts

The best of these, which I consider for certain situations, are:

• Beast Hunter (Standard and Combat focused)
• Cyber Runner (Stealthy)
• Bounty Hunter (Better for Space Exploration)

By playing Starfield for a considerable amount of time, I have observed that the above-mentioned backgrounds will suit most players according to their playstyle.

Meanwhile, certain skills are specific to certain backgrounds. This does not mean that the Skill is inaccessible to players. However, I would try to pick a background with decent starter skills to save the skill points and invest in other skills later. I recommend that players carefully review the descriptions and pick a background that suits their playstyle best.

Similar reads:

• Starfield Digipick.
• Starfield Best Quests To Do First.
• Starfield Best Melee Weapons.